| MONTERREY,
Mexico -- In an historic breakthrough for the United
Nations, a group of 171 nations, including 51 heads
of state, Friday unanimously adopted the Monterrey
consensus on Financing for Development underscoring
their Millennium pledge to halve poverty in the
world by the year 2015. They also agreed to strengthen
the United Nations itself. But it was clear in
statements
from the world's largest aid donors, the 15-nation
European Union and the United States, as they pledged
billions more dollars, that aid will become more
contingent upon good governance, transparency and
the rule of law.
In
strong language, which some poorer nations said they
found unpalatable, US President George W. Bush told
world leaders that developing countries had to undertake
political, economic and legal reforms in order to
get Western aid.
"Liberty and law and opportunity are the
conditions for development," Bush said.
Referring to the Sept. 11 attacks, which diplomats
said have spurred the US to improve its aid allocations,
he added, "We fight against poverty because
hope is an answer to terror."
For decades,
he said, the success of development aid was
measured only in the resources spent,
not the results achieved. "Yet, pouring
money into a failed status quo does little to
help the poor, and can actually delay the progress
of reform. We must accept a higher, more difficult,
more promising call. Developed nations have a
duty not only to share our wealth, but also to
encourage sources that produce wealth: economic
freedom, political liberty, the rule of law and
human rights," Bush said.
UN Secretary General Kofi A. Annan has asked
for an additional $50 billion a year from rich
nations to meet the conference's aim of halving
the number of people living on less than $1 a
day by 2015. At their summit in Barcelona last
week, EU leaders agreed to an average official
development assistance (ODA) target of 0.39 percent
of national income by the year 2006, and pledged
they would strive to meet Annan's ODA target
of 0.7 percent of national income.
Although this falls short of the 0.7 percent
target, it represents an additional $7 billion,
more than the latest US increase of $5 billion
annually from that year.
Washington has,
however, declined to endorse the target, insisting
that free trade and private
investment hold the keys to development. "The
vast majority of financing for development comes
not from aid, but from trade and domestic capital
and foreign investment," Bush said. He said
the new funding would go into a Millennium Challenge
Account. "We must build the institutions
of freedom, not subsidize the failures of the
past. We must do more than just feel good about
what we are doing, we must do good," Bush
said.
Romano Prodi,
the president of the EU executive commission,
wasted no time in saying the new
donor commitment to aid was as a result of the
Sept. 11 attacks, "We were quick to demonstrate
our solidarity and our unity and our determination
to fight terrorism. This fight must continue.
And now we must show the same determination today
in tackling the other crucial issues which affect
the future of the world."
Europe was conscious
of the "absolute moral
imperative of combating the extreme poverty suffered
by one-fifth of humanity" and was concerned
to improve the effectiveness and the amount of
its aid. Without stressing the conditions Bush
laid out, Prodi added, "Our future is a
matter of political will and choice. Europe is
opting for openness and solidarity. And I would
call on our partners to work with us in a global
partnership for peace and sustainable development."
Said French President
Jacques Chirac, "The
developing countries have committed themselves
to promoting economic growth through good governance
and greater recourse to private initiative."
Friday Jumbe,
Minister of Finance and Economic Planning of
Malawi, one of the poorest nations
in southern Africa, said African leaders were
not altogether happy, even though some progress
had been achieved in Monterrey. "But what
of follow-up and practical commitment?" he
asked. As time has passed and personalities have
changed, poor African nations want better assurances
that aid will keep flowing, he said.
They were also
concerned about the criteria set by donors,
and many of them were concerned
that they would not get funds if they were not "in
the good books" of the US, Europe or the
IMF and World Bank. Europe, he said, simply did
not provide aid to nations that did not have
a proper arrangement with the IMF. "Good
governance, the rule of law and transparency
are fine. But what is the definition and what
is the determinant? So, it is subjective and
thus dangerous because an innocent country can
be punished," Jumbe said.
Zambian Deputy
Minister of Finance and National Planning,
Patrick Kalifungwa, told The Earth
Times, "One has to be more specific on these
conditions to aid." In his speech to the
UN, he welcomed the "long overdue" progress
achieved in Monterrey.
For Ghana's Minister
for Economic Planning and Regional Cooperation,
P. Kwesi Ndoum, Monterrey
had been invaluable because it marked the first
time, he said, that a world conference of such
magnitude had been devoted to poverty. "It
is refreshing that here the EU affirmed both
its agreement and its support for the Millennium
Development Goals, and that the US is also increasing
its development assistance. I also think that
for the first time in a long time, people are
beginning to talk about Africa, not just because
there are wars and conflict, but also because
of the opportunity for trade for Africa, an opportunity
for prosperity to happen in Africa," he
said. Ndoum said this was in part because African
leaders themselves are signing up to good governance
under their New Economic Partnership for Africa
(NEPAD).
Pakistani Finance
Minister Shaukat Aziz said: "Donor
bashing is very popular, but that doesn't solve
anything. Help us to help ourselves-aid is not
a permanent crutch. One of the reasons the EU
and the other donors have committed more aid
is that there's an awareness that we live in
a world with tremendous contrasts in the gap
between rich and poor. I think this awareness
post Sept. 11 has become more pronounced, and
so we see an awareness and a willingness to help." Developing
nations, he added, had to show good governance
and transparency. However, hundreds of NGOs said
in a joint statement they did not consider the
Monterrey consensus a sufficient basis for combating
poverty or for advancing economic, social and
cultural rights. It was with such criticism in
mind that Oscar de Rojas, Executive Coordinator
of the UN's Financing for Development Secretariat,
was at pains to point out at a news conference
that in Monterrey the world leaders had agreed
to a "firm commitment" to strengthen
the United Nations itself as the main organization
for revamping the international financial system.
It would undertake this task in coordination
with the World Bank and the IMF.
The last chapter of the Monterrey consensus
also concludes with a commitment, he said, to
strengthen the UN Economic and Social Council
(ECOSOC), the UN General Assembly, and multilateralism
in general. The aim would be to close the gaps
in the world economic governance system, De Rojas
said.
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